1. Field of Invention
The instant invention is designed for the improvement of cross flow heat exchangers. Such cross flow exchangers are used principally in outside air heating or cooling systems for preheating or cooling outside air using exhaust air as the heating medium. The typical heat exchanger normally operates with two air sources. Said air sources are kept apart from one another and only the sensible and/or total heat of said air streams are permitted to be exchanged.
2. Description of Prior Art
The prior art consists of a variety of cross flow air to air heat exchangers of various efficiencies. As noted above, said heat exchangers are used mainly for heating or cooling whereby they function by the degree of warmth or chill from one air stream being transmitted to a second air stream without the two air streams coming into direct contact with each other.
The heat exchanger element typically has two sets of channels for the two sets of air streams, which are separated from each other by alternate series of heat-permeable walls, e.g. paper with folded corrugations, as shown in FIG. 4. Generally, the air flows in conventional heat exchangers are perpendicular to each other, and the channels of the heat exchanger element are aligned respectively with said perpendicular air flows. If one desires to utilize more than one heat exchanger, said heat exchangers must be placed serially in a row either horizontally or vertically unless ducts are used to direct the flow of air outward from one of the initial heat exchangers into a second heat exchanger. This necessitates a greater use of space volume for the installation of multiple heat exchanger elements. The conventional methods thus have the problem of efficiency of space usage because the heat exchangers must be placed serially in a row or with the use of inter-connecting ducts between elements groups.